Humphries loses badly
Van den Bergh wins nerve-racking darts final
March 4, 2024, 8:49 a.m
The UK Open for darts professionals will have a memorable finale. World champion Luke Humphries looks like a certain loser in his duel with Dimitri van den Bergh for a long time, but then fights back brilliantly and doesn’t win in the end. In the match dart crime game he is left behind.
The Belgian Dimitri van den Bergh won the UK Open for darts professionals in Minehead. The 29-year-old beat world champion Luke Humphries from England 11:10 in the final. Van den Bergh collects the bonus of 110,000 pounds by winning the tournament. A total of 600,000 pounds (around 700,000 euros) will be paid out to the 158 participants.
Humphries had outclassed two compatriots on the way to the final. In the quarter-finals, “Cool Hand Luke” defeated Stephen Bunting 10:2, and in the semi-finals he also gave Ricky Evans no chance (11:2). Van den Bergh eliminated Australian Damon Heta, with whom he once shared a house in England, in the semi-finals (11:6). After the success over his former roommate, Van den Bergh quickly took a clear lead in the final. But Humphries turned a 2:7 deficit into 8:8, but ultimately lost dramatically after two missed match darts. Van den Bergh used his seventh.
Martin Schindler failed in the round of 32 on Saturday to World Cup finalist Luke Littler (8:10). Schindler and Littler fought a hard-fought match in which the German was initially on course for victory after a break. But then Littler, who averaged almost 102 points, turned up the heat. Schindler held his own with a total of six 180 shots, but his English opponent managed to get the narrow lead across the finish line. The 17-year-old Englishman was eliminated in the quarter-finals against Heta; it was the highest-class game of the tournament.
For the first time in the history of the tournament, eleven German professionals qualified for the “FA Cup of Darts”. Gabriel Clemens, Ricardo Pietreczko, Florian Hempel and Co. were eliminated on Friday in the fourth round at the latest. Only Schindler was still there on Saturday after “The Wall” surprisingly defeated former world champion Gerwyn Price. Tim Wolters narrowly missed out on becoming a sensation. The tour newcomer from the Lower Rhine played his way into the fourth round and was only eliminated by a narrow margin of 9:10 against top player Jonny Clayton.